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Good, fine-tip tweezers are a must. The Wiha 4b and 7a tweezers are great
•
One helpful trick for soldering SMD with wire solder is to pre-solder one pad
for each component location. Next, hold the component in place and touch
your soldering iron tip to the pre-soldered pad to reflow the solder. Then you
can solder the other side normally.
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Flux is your friend. Use flux. Water-soluble flux is best for a clean
finish, but you have to make sure to get it all off when done, as
it can corrode the joint and some fluxes may also be capacitive.
NOTE: The potentiometers and switches are NOT sealed and cannot be
submerged; so don't wash them. You can also use no-clean flux.
•
Smallest first. Solder the components in increasing order of size. Per board,
per side, not overall.
•
Minimize heat exposure. Heat destroys components, and SMD are particularly
sensitive because they have less mass to distribute the heat. Flux helps with
this too.
•
Use the face plate to line up the potentiometers, jacks, and LEDs, before
soldering; this is much easier than resoldering them to line them up correctly
afterward.
The easiest build order is as follows:
Control PCB:
•
1. All SMD
2. All panel components
3. Socket headers
•
Mid PCB:
1. All SMD
2. Headers
•
Rear PCB:
1. Rear side SMD — VR- & VR+
2. Front side SMD
3. HDROUT, HDRIN, HDR22, HDR23
4. HDR29, HDR30
NOTE: Use a large tip and a heat gun (if possible) to solder VR- and VR+.
The heat sink areas will wick the heat away rapidly, so use the heat gun to preheat
the board.
2) IMO, their 5abb were the best, but they discontinued them so FML. No, you can't have mine.
3) No, there aren't 30 headers, I forgot to update the numbering before finalizing the design.
FAM500-K v1.0 manual Dec. 2022 — p.3/14
Kit Notes (cont.)
Assembly Order
3
www.flightofharmony.com
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2
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